


Petey and the Giant Alien Reindeer From Outer Space

by Cuda (Scylla)



Category: Supernatural, Superwho - Fandom, Superwood - Fandom, Torchwood
Genre: Adventure, Aliens, Gen, Horses, M/M, Reindeer, Winter, sleighrides in the snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-10
Updated: 2014-12-10
Packaged: 2018-02-28 21:17:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2747414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scylla/pseuds/Cuda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part of the Harkstiel Holiday Advent. Jack and Castiel take a sleigh ride to return something very important to someone very large. And powerful. And beautiful and scary. And did I mention large?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Petey and the Giant Alien Reindeer From Outer Space

Jack never regretted picking a spirited teammate, and 'Petey' - a massive bay gelding the exact color of varnished maple - held up to standards admirably. He trotted like he'd trot on to the heat death of the universe, the bells on his harness chiming with a rhythm you could set a metronome to. 

Years ago for Jack, burying himself (and his handsome company) in the furs of a sleek green sleigh was a winter evening ritual. Years enough to appreciate the romance, and not think of the work and worry of the pressing cold nights. He'd forgotten the peace of it, with the runners' low swish and the rhythm of hoofbeats, bells, and breath. Without headlights, the dusk was a friend, the skies clear and pitted with stars.

Castiel leaned on the front edge of the sleigh, cheeks burned by the wind, nosing the breeze like a setter. He ignored the furs in his eagerness, which made more padding around the precious cargo on the floorboard between them. "Jack!" he shouted.

"What is it?"

"This isn't at all like flying," Castiel said into the wind, turned and grinned at Jack in the dark, "but I like it!"

Jack's answering laugh bounded into the night on springy deer legs. He felt good, glad with anticipation and a touch of fear. The moon hung on the horizon ahead of them like an uncracked egg. Here in the open, freedom rolled out as expansive as the carpet of unspoiled snow around them, turning violet in the deepening dark. Petey's footsteps were sure and strong, and as the sun died behind them, moonlight washed the mountains in shades of silver.

Jack could feel Castiel yearning forward, his eagerness trembling out in waves. Jack scuffed his shoulder with one gloved hand. Castiel turned again to him, the high points of his face picked out in white.

"Go stretch those wings," Jack smiled, "Petey and I'll meet you at the summit."

"You'll be all right?" Castiel asked seriously, as if his whole being didn't shimmy with the desire to fly. Jack laughed again.

"If I'm not all right, I've picked the wrong profession! Now go!"

Without further goading, Castiel sort of coiled into himself, hunkering down in the foot of the sleigh. There were suddenly wings sharing the seat with Jack; great ones, catching the wind of their passing like buckets. In the sun they'd be blue-black and slicked with peacock greens, but here they were shadows, rimmed with feathers sharp and white as diamonds. Castiel shot into the air like an arrow, blown back to hang behind the sleigh, then up again into the cold, starry sky. Jack heard him then, more than saw, as strong wings pumped faithfully overhead. He was jealous for that, and longed for a taste of flight, but it was a pleasure to look up and see Castiel abreast the sleigh, fingers stretching white to heaven, face gleaming with fierce joy. Castiel's love was the love of a wild thing, and Jack never forgot that a wolf came to his hand, no matter the wolf watched him with drowsy devotion and sat with him by the fire.

Petey didn't seem to mind the strange bird following his sleigh. Possibly the angel explained it to him ahead of time, or Castiel wasn't Petey's first angel. Either way, the brief thought of owning a horse again drifted through Jack's mind. They hired him because there was a cabin out here unreachable by conventional vehicles, and sno-kats and snowmobiles prohibited in this protected stretch of country. They had a meeting to make, and the motors disturbed their guests anyway. Petey might come in handy for other rendezvous of that sort and - Jack cast an eye skyward to his companion, soaked in the winter night - those of another nature. Castiel certainly liked it.

They reached the cabin in plenty of time, nestled in the arms of tall cedars on the edge of a large clearing. Castiel joined him, the fierce glow of joy subdued a little by his exertion. He coaxed a fire to life in the fireplace, set a pot of snow to melt on the hearth, and made up a nest of furs and blankets while Jack tended to Petey with numb hands in the little lean-to shelter by the door. When the cabin was warm enough and Petey had been cooled and buckled into his blanket with a bucket of hot mash, they turned to their cargo in the foot of the sleigh. Still wrapped in blankets was a great egg the shape and color of the moon - especially now, when the dark robbed it of all its color.

Castiel hefted the egg as if it weighed nothing, and carried it to the center of the clearing. He sat it in the snow there, and with Jack's help banked a blanket of cold around it. "When should she be here?" Castiel asked, brushing crystals of melting snow from his hands.

"Any minute now," Jack promised, and a series of restless ticks came from inside the mottled shell.

Wrapped in a plaid wool blanket with their fingers laced around mugs of hot coffee, Jack and Castiel sat on the cabin porch swing to watch their egg. In close quarters, Castiel burned like a furnace against the cold. Jack was more than willing to take advantage of that heat. At their feet was a long-range sniper rifle with a laser scope, and a crossbow loaded with explosive heads. 

Just in case.

"You know, I like this place," Jack murmured, letting the great open sky and wildness hush hum, "I could stand a few more horse-drawn sleigh operations." As if to answer, Petey ambled out of his shed and hung his great head over the porch railing. He blew a smoky breath at them, and rumbled.

"Petey asks that you be gentler with his mouth on the trip down," Castiel murmured back, "you clearly haven't driven a horse in years."

Jack blinked. He looked from Castiel to the horse, watching him beadily from the railing. "My apologies, Petey. Figured it was like riding a bicycle."

Castiel shook his head. "Horses don't ride bicycles, Jack. He won't have a concept for that."

"Oh. Well… I didn't realize I could forget," Jack amended, trying to maintain his composure in the midst of an unexpected conversation with a horse. Then a shadow crossed the moon over their heads, and a seam of black unzipped the egg in the center of the clearing.

She arrived like a meteor sweeping to earth, white as the moonlight and only a little less bright. Her forehooves touched earth like flower petals, large enough to stamp craters. The wind of her arrival pushed at the trees, and drifted a miniature blizzard onto the cabin porch. Jack and Castiel were on their feet as she landed, and coming to the railing to watch in open-mouthed amazement. Petey's considerable courage failed him at last and he retreated to tuck his head in the furthest corner of the shed.

She was beautiful, slender as a swan and large enough to stand astride the meadow. Her long neck swept up like a skyscraper, fernlike fans of gills planing away from her round, bovine head, with a crown of sweeping antlers nesting the moon. Jack caught his breath. Castiel's fingers found his, and Jack squeezed them hard. Their weapons would probably mean nothing to this creature, and they were in her care.

Her cry rang like church bells, and then she was not alone. The egg fell in two parts and a much smaller, wet dark version of herself rolled into the snow. While they watched, she nosed it, washing it with her tongue until it rose on long, unsteady legs. Her head easily outsized the youngster's whole body, but it showed no fear. It grew before their eyes, stretching like a hyacinth from the snow in a time-lapse film. When it was tall enough to nurse, just a leggy shadow by her silvery side, she turned her eyes to the cabin.

Jack knew she could kill them if she wanted to. She had the power. The time of creatures that large on this planet was long ago. Her eyes were impossibly large and dark, the moonlight catching them inside like blue gems set in frames of huge, curling lashes.

Castiel winced away from her eyes as if he'd been struck. "She's very loud," he said, "but she is grateful. She knows what we did for her."

Jack watched Castiel, concern tearing his gaze away from the creatures in the clearing. "Glad to help. I'm just sorry someone stole her baby in the first place."

A few moments later, Castiel bent away again, hands lifting to rub his temples. "She says we took good care of him. His name is—" He paused, and shook his head, "—I can't put words to it. It's music."

Beyond them, she snorted, her soft breath chiming against the night. She brought her face as close as she might, and Jack could have drowned in the placid, bottomless eyes at the edge of his porch. He wondered if he could touch her, and reached out.

His hands vanished into the chilly white feathers on her flat forehead, up to the elbows, until they touched furnace heat.

Like Castiel. Jack held his breath.

She withdrew. With only the soft squeak of snow, she turned, and rejoined her child. He shook his broad, heavy ears, set comically wide, and as Jack watched some of the dark bleached out of his fur. He was turning white. Like his mother. Like the moon.

He left the earth first, then she. They vanished, blotting out the moonlight for a moment, sending skirls of snow against the cabin again. After a few minutes of silence, Jack could feel the cold again. He laughed, and couldn't seem to stop laughing. Castiel led him inside and kissed him, Jack's jaw cupped in his hands, and passion and joy welled out of Jack like a great silver wings, spreading to the moon.


End file.
